Showing posts with label Protecting America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Protecting America. Show all posts

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Arizona versus Obama: State representatives draft legislation that would nullify unconstitutional federal dictates

You've got to give the state of Arizona credit: its top legislators and administrators possess more guts than President Obama's entire team of bureaucrats combined. When sued, Arizona sues back. When knocked down, they stand up and throw haymakers.

A new proposal at the Arizona Legislature will take the state's fight with the feds to a whole new level: It would let the state actually nullify federal laws that legislators believe are invalid.

The measure crafted by Sen. Lori Klein, R-Anthem, would set up a committee of 12 lawmakers to review federal laws and regulations to determine which are "outside the scope of the powers delegated by the people to the federal in the United States Constitution."

... "We have in Washington a particularly overreaching administration as well as regulations that are coming out of agencies that are not even mandated from Congress," Klein said. "The states have a right to stand up to these kinds of onerous regulations."

...her measure says the only court ruling that Arizona will accept is that of the U.S. Supreme Court...

... "We have in Washington a particularly overreaching administration as well as regulations that are coming out of agencies that are not even mandated from Congress," Klein said. "The states have a right to stand up to these kinds of onerous regulations."

...She specifically singled out "Obama-care," last year's national health care law, and its requirement for individuals to obtain insurance or face a fine. If nothing else, she said, that flies directly in the face of a measure Arizona voters approved just last year providing state constitutional protections against such requirements.

Arizona, to its credit, has been particularly aggressive in combating the bizarre and often contradictory dictates emanating from Washington. Among their challenges to federal authority:

• SB 1308 and HB 2562 setting up interstate compacts to honor each other's birth certificates segregating children who are considered U.S. citizens from those who are not;

• SB 1309 and HB 2561 defining Arizona citizenship, part of the move to deny U.S. citizenship to children of illegal immigrants;

• SB 1328 saying Arizonans do not have to comply with a federal law or rule if they allow a federal employee or member of Congress not to comply;

• SB 1391 creating an interstate firearms freedoms act guaranteeing the right of citizens to bear arms free of federal regulation;

• SB 1393 declaring the state has exclusive right to regulate carbon dioxide emissions;

• SB 1394 protecting the right to emit carbon dioxide from human-caused activity;

• SB 1545 allowing the production of nuclear fuel in Arizona free from federal regulation;

• SCR 1016 requiring approval from the legislatures of half the states to increase the federal debt;

• HB 2077 requiring any federal agency coming into a county to conduct official business to first register with the sheriff;

• HB 2471 barring the appropriation of any state funds to comply with a federal mandate unless the federal government provides a report to show the mandate is constitutional;

• HB 2472 allowing the state to acquire federal property by eminent domain unless the federal government first got legislative permission to obtain the land in the first place;

• HB 2537 permitting the House speaker and Senate president to sue over or defend last year's SB 1070 imposing new state laws on illegal immigration;

• HB 2544 requiring presidential candidates to provide certain proof of citizenship before they can appear on the ballot in Arizona;

• HCR 2015 calling for a constitutional convention to adopt an amendment to require consent of three-fourths of the states to increase federal debt;

• HCR 2022 proposing a constitutional convention to require a balanced federal budget.

While I don't support some of these bills (a constitutional convention, for instance), it's good to see an organized rebellion against unconstitutional and extra-constitutional behavior that has become standard fare for the Obama administration and an insatiable, power-hungry Democrat Party.


Hat tip: D&S.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Rick Santorum Responds to the 'Palin-in-the-Kitchen' Kerfuffle

Before he was booted out of CPAC, Cub Reporter Biff Spackle filed this interview with former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA). First the backdrop: if you've hadn't been tracking the faux controversy, Sisu reports:

...as TIME explains:

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who is exploring a bid for the Republican nomination, told S.E. Cupp, who hosts an online radio show on Glenn Beck's website, that Sarah Palin is skipping CPAC because of her "business opportunities" and "other responsibilities" such as raising her five children.

"I don't live in Alaska and I'm not the mother to all these kids and I don't have other responsibilities that she has,” said Santorum.

Sarah reloaded and came roaring back with vintage Palin on Hannity last night:

Sarah Palin made clear Wednesday night that she took offense at Rick Santorum’s suggestion she’s not attending CPAC because she’s out making money and taking care of her kids, calling his claims “uniformed” and saying she will leave it to his wife to label him a “knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.”

We loved twitter buddy Ruth Anne Adams's 140-or-fewer-character retort: 

WTF is Santorum talking about? Last I knew, he had 4 [correction: 7] kids to raise, too. That sexism ain't so subtle, Rick.

And in response to our own diaper-changing tweet above:

I thought so, too, when I heard it. Santorum? Prig.


Santorum responded, "I've discussed this with Sarah through an intermediary. She's fine. I'm fine. This is another instance of liberal media [Politico] spinning a comment by implying something that just wasn't there."

"This was a controversy invented -- soup-to-nuts -- by Politico."

Gee, that seems so out-of-character for a bunch of washed-up has-beens that couldn't make it at the Washington Post.


Behind the Scenes at CPAC #cpac11

Biff Spackle emailed us this exclusive photo from blogger's row at CPAC.

Clockwise from top right: Javier from SharkTank, Obi's Sister, Fausta and the inestimable Gateway Pundit. Bad news, however: this may be the last photo we get from CPAC because Spackle's home-made ID didn't exactly pass muster.



Bachmann Opens CPAC With Fiery Speech

How does a Michelle Bachmann--Allen West ticket sound? Bachmann's CPAC kickoff speech was truly inspirational.

You've already changed America for the better, just changing control of the house was a huge down payment for the future of America. So many of you got off the couch in this last election and decided you were not going to take it anymore...

...we have 29 Republican governors, 20 Democrat, and one independent. We flipped 680 seats in state legislatures. This is a record...

...What we have seen in recent years is a lurch toward dependency. This is not an America I recognize. I feel we are losing America. I don't think I'm being overly dramatic. We've been trading bits and pieces of our freedom for entitlements and benefits. The result has been devastating to our heritage and our culture. Our welfare system has created out of wedlock birthrates to sky rocket and social pathologies to sky rocket...

...The size and scope of government is out of control. The EPA in particular is out of control. Now they want farmers to control dust flying off their farms -- they call it fugitive dust! They want to control milk spills like chemical spills!

We need to return to a more limited form of government like our founders envisioned. We need spending restraint, and growing our economy. Waive a magic wand - wipe the entire Obama agenda off the table...

Read the whole thing. Michelle Bachmann is the real deal.


Sunday, February 06, 2011

Dear Democrats: 'The Mayans were right–your world is coming to an end in 2012'

'Hey World, What A Steel Fist in a Velvet Glove Looks Like':

Liberals, Islamists and Globalists take note: She’ll always look this good, even when ruining your plans.


Meanwhile, Palin Derangement Syndrome -- even when it harms military families in need -- continues apace.


ThinkProgress Celebrates Ronald Reagan's Birthday By Marketing Its Top Ten Lies Intended to Smear the 20th Century's Greatest President

That was quick--ThinkProgress attacks Ronald Reagan with their usual slate of laughably fraudulent fabrications

It didn't take long for the loons at ThinkRegress to begin attacking the memory of the 20th century's greatest president. The culmination of their effort -- '10 Things Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know About Ronald Reagan' -- is a list of Reagan's policies that conservatives supposedly want to hide from the general public.

Reagan was not the man conservatives claim he was. This image of Reagan as a conservative superhero is myth, created to untie the various factions of the right behind a common leader. In reality, Reagan was no conservative ideologue or flawless commander-in-chief. Reagan regularly strayed from conservative dogma — he raised taxes eleven times as president while tripling the deficit — and he often ended up on the wrong side of history, like when he vetoed an Anti-Apartheid bill.

ThinkProgress' "top 10 things conservatives rarely mention when talking about President Reagan" are as follows:

" 1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser" - Reagan suffered from overwhelming Democrat majorities in Congress when he took office. While he desperately wanted to strip away huge swaths of government (including eliminating the then newly created Department of Education), he had no choice but to compromise with the Democrats who controlled the budgetary purse-strings. When Reagan left office, the top marginal tax rate was 28% (today's it's 35% and under Bill Clinton it was nearly 40%).

"2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit by enacting a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously" - Another flat-out lie. Before his 25 percent across-the-board cut in individual income-tax rates went into effect, government receipts from individual income taxes trickled in at $244.1 billion. The year Reagan left office, they totaled $445.7 billion -- an 82 percent jump. As for the deficits, Democrats outspent every one of the nine budgets Reagan proposed but one. Further, Democrats refused to make corresponding cuts in wasteful domestic programs to offset the defense appropriations Reagan needed to combat the Soviet Union after the Carter administration's foreign policy disasters (e.g., Iran, Afghanistan, et. al.).

"3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts" - Before the full tax-relief package was passed -- against the wishes of many Democrats, by the way -- the jobless rate hit 9.6 percent. But as the cuts rippled through the economy, unemployment dropped every year after 1983, reaching a low of 5.3 percent in 1989. And tax cuts benefited minorities, too. The jobless rate among blacks plunged from 19.5 percent in 1983 to 11.4 percent in 1989.

"4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously" - this again omits the role of Congressional Democrats who controlled the purse-strings and refused to axe the programs and agencies that Reagan requested. In fact, the media portrayed Reagan as "heartless" and depicted him as "laughable and malevolent" for his attempts to strip away the federal bureaucracy. But the only way the Democrat Congress would accept a defense buildup and tax cuts was for Reagan to agree to their domestic spending agenda. In fact, the budget deficits of the 1980s made the surpluses in the 1990s possible; the balanced budget was aided by surging tax revenues from a healthy, low-tax economy and immense defense savings made possible by the fall of the Soviet Union.

"5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to chose [sic]" - Reagan was adamant about ending the practice of 'abortion on demand' and proposed that legislation be drafted to do so (you can hear Reagan's 1983 address on this subject); but he "had little success in gaining its acceptance by Congress."

" 6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.”" - this is sheer revisionist idiocy; Reagan believed, first and foremost, in peace through strength. He gave dozens of speeches on this topic, rebuilt the U.S. military after Carter had stripped it bare, and created the impetus for the oft-derided SDI ("Star Wars") program that has since become an essential part of U.S. national security strategy. His famous slogans on this topic were "peace through strength" and "trust but verify".

" 7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants" - The Democrat leadership in Congress promised to enact strict enforcement measures as a trade for a one-time amnesty deal. In an effort to control the border, Reagan went along with the deal. At the time (1986), the measures were marketed by Democrats as as being able to stop illegal immigration. Ted Kennedy himself sold the enforcement clauses of the law as strong enough to ensure that only a one-time amnesty would be needed. But, as is their standard practice, Democrats lied about sealing the border.

Reagan himself said, "This country has lost control of its borders. And no country can sustain that kind of position."

" 8. Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran" -Democrats launched a six-year, $40 million investigation of Reagan in a politically inspired witch-hunt. Reagan was, in fact, found guilty of absolutely nothing. Furthermore, indictments were intentionally handed down mere days before the 1992 election that pitted George H. W. Bush against Bill Clinton -- presumably to levy the maximum amount of political damage on the GOP candidate. Near the end of the investigations, The Baltimore Sun reported that a "federal trial judge in Washington dismissed Oliver North's conviction" and that "[c]riticism of Mr. Walsh's prosecution and of the law that authorized it will become more intense [because the] public has gotten precious little from his [at the time] $30 million, four-year effort".

"9. Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act" - Reagan vehemently opposed apartheid ("Apartheid is morally wrong and politically unacceptable [... the] United States cannot maintain cordial relations with [such] a government") but he did not support the approach advocated by Congress. He issued an executive order restricting trade with the Pretoria government and virtually ended inter-bank dealings. But he believed that Congress' unilateral sanctions would harm blacks most of all and eradicate all of the leverage he wanted to bring to bear on South Africa. He wanted a timetable for the elimination of apartheid laws, the release of all political prisoners (especially Nelson Mandela) and a removal of the ban on black political movements. He felt he could not negotiate with the South African government if he had nothing to trade. His 1986 speech -- "Ending Apartheid in South Africa" -- comprehensively described his plans and approach.

" 10. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden" - Gee, next they'll be complaining that we had to side with the Soviets to defeat the Nazis. This sort of leftist lunacy simply rewrites history. We needed to sabotage the Soviets' efforts in Afghanistan to prevent a dramatic power-shift in the Middle East. Blaming Reagan for the Taliban and Bin Laden is like blaming Henry Ford for the problem of too many scrap tires.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Happy Birthday, Mr. President. Rest assured that the Left is just as stupid, dishonest and disingenuous as they were when you were in office.


Friday, February 04, 2011

Awesome: Air Travel Soon to Feature Super-Efficient, Newly Unionized TSA Security Screeners

If there's anything that could make airport travel even more pleasant, it would be unionizing the TSA security screeners. That way they can't be fired no matter how incompetent, rude and under-performing they are.

The government will grant collective bargaining rights to the nation's 40,000 airport screeners, the head of the largest federal workers union said Friday... John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told The Associated Press he was informed of the decision at a meeting with John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration.

TSA workers have tried for nearly a decade to win the same union protections as other federal employees, but Republican opponents have balked over worries that union demands could jeopardize national security or slow response times in a crisis.

...Pistole had spent months studying the unionization issue since he was confirmed to the post in June. The move comes just days after Pistole said the agency would not hire private contractors to screen airline passengers, despite calls to do so from some Republican lawmakers and frustrated passengers.

...President Barack Obama had pledged to get the screeners collective bargaining rights during his campaign... AFGE already has more than 12,000 dues-paying members among the screeners' ranks, but the union has not been allowed to bargain on behalf of its members.

What could go wrong?

Air travelers will now get to experience the high quality of public sector union workers each and every trip.

This why I'm long companies that sell telepresence and videoconferencing equipment.


Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Constitutional crisis brewing: Administration refuses to honor Congressional requests and court order to cease implementation of Obamacare

The Daily Caller reports that President Obama has snubbed the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee by withholding key documents that were due this past Saturday.

The Obama snub is the first sign of how the administration will respond to demands for documents and testimony by key officials ... now that the GOP holds the power of congressional subpoena... [Committee Chairman Darrell Issa stated that] “I asked DHS to produce this information by Jan. 29 – two weeks from the date of my second letter ... The department gave no indication that it would not be able to comply with the deadline.”

Further, Issa charges that top DHS officials actually instructed career employees not to search for the documents he is requesting... “I was disappointed to learn that on or about Jan. 20, 2011, DHS’s Office of General Counsel instructed career staff in the Privacy Office not to search for documents responsive to my request,” Issa says in the Feb. 1 letter.

Issa is requesting documents from DHS about political interference with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the agency... In July, the Associated Press reported top DHS officials told career employees to steer sensitive FOIA requests to Obama’s political advisers for unusual scrutiny... FOIA requests by lawmakers, watchdog groups and journalists were subjected to the special political reviews...

In other words, Freedom of Information requests were routed to Obama's political advisers -- delightful fellows like David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel -- to help suppress disclosure of information that could prove damaging to the president's image.

One wag suggested that Congress may get faster results making requests through WikiLeaks. But this is no joke: it represents the kind of cover-up that led to the fall of Richard Nixon.

ObamaCare Enjoined -- Will the Administration Abide?


Judge Roger Vinson's ruling that Obamacare's individual mandate is unconstitutional did more than declare the law null and avoid -- the judge "stated in his decision that a declaratory judgment is the functional equivalent of an injunction," Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said. "This means that, for Wisconsin, the federal health care law is dead..."

Now that a federal judge has issued a de facto injunction against implementation of the health care takeover, I'll give you three guesses as to how the White House is reacting. And if all three of your guess were: 'They'll ignore the judge, insult him, and continue anyhow -- kind of like a Banana Republic', you'd be right.

Consider "White House vows to implement health care reform, despite judge’s ruling":

Senior administration officials vowed on Monday to continue with the full implementation of President Obama’s health-care reform law despite a federal judge’s decision declaring the law unconstitutional and void in its entirety... ...Administration officials and supporters of the health-care reform law immediately criticized Vinson’s ruling. “This case will be viewed as an outlier,” one administration official said.

CNBC's John Carney accurately dissects the issues by asking "Is The Obama Administration Throwing Us Into a Constitutional Crisis Over Health Care?":

'...the law is void and cannot be implemented from this point forward. The Administration’s legal remedy is to seek a stay of the ruling pending appeal. It cannot just defy a federal court ruling. If it tries, the plaintiffs should go to court for the injunction and/or seek an order of contempt against the administration. Pretending that the ruling doesn’t change anything when it unequivocally does, would be both a petulant and extra-legal approach to governance...'

So has the Obama administration halted the implementation of the law? The answer is: No.

The website of the White House is unambiguous about this: “Implementation will continue.”

Indeed: the state attorneys general should immediately ask the judge to hold the administration in contempt.

A Constitutional Crisis?


Speaking of contempt, that's a good word to describe the esteem in which the White House holds the Constitution. Its hatred for the law appears palpable.

Defying the will of Congress and the direct order of a federal judge means that the Obama administration is touching off a Constitutional crisis far worse than that which led to Richard Nixon's resignation.

Only in this case, the media doesn't care because the president's a left-leaning zealot, just like most of them.

This administration is acting as though it's running Venezuela or Nicaragua, which -- come to think of it -- would be far better suited to a man of Obama's talents.

This is the United States of America, not a third world dictatorship. If the president refuses to cooperate with Congress and the courts, he should be impeached. No ifs, ands or buts.


Update/correction: Ace indicates that Issa's formal request was not a subpoena, though that's probably next on the agenda.

Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Monday, January 31, 2011

Federal Judge to Nancy Pelosi: "Yeah, Lady, We're Quite Serious"

"Are you serious? Are you serious?" -- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, when asked where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance, October 22, 2009

A federal judge savaged the Democrat's health care reform bill today, ruling the contentious 'individual mandate' unconstitutional and invalidating the entire law.

A Florida federal judge on Monday ruled that a key plank of the health overhaul passed last March violates the Constitution, dealing a second judicial blow to the Obama administration's signature legislative achievement.

The case is considered the most high-profile of a series of federal lawsuits against the health overhaul. Attorneys general and governors from 20 states initially filed the lawsuit, and six more got behind it earlier this month. All but four of them are Republicans.

In his ruling, Judge Roger Vinson, a Republican appointee, said that the law's requirement to carry insurance or pay a fee "is outside Congress' Commerce Clause power, and it cannot be otherwise authorized by an assertion of power under the Necessary and Proper Clause. It is not constitutional."

The ruling also said that entire law "must be declared void," because the mandate to carry insurance is "not severable" from the rest of the law.

Pages 41 and 42 of the ruling make for especially good reading -- the Framers would be proud of Judge Vinson, who eviscerated the administration's argument six ways from Sunday.

...there is a simple and rather obvious reason why the Supreme Court has never distinguished between activity and inactivity before: it has not been called upon to consider the issue because, until now, Congress had never attempted to exercise its Commerce Clause power in such a way before. See CBO Analysis (advising Congress during the previous health care reform efforts in 1994 that “[t]he government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”). In every Supreme Court case decided thus far, Congress was not seeking to regulate under its commerce power something that could even arguably be said to be “passive inactivity.”

It would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause. If it has the power to compel an otherwise passive individual into a commercial transaction with a third party merely by asserting --- as was done in the Act --- that compelling the actual transaction is itself “commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate commerce” [see Act § 1501(a)(1)], it is not hyperbolizing to suggest that Congress could do almost anything it wanted. It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place. If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be “difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power” [Lopez, supra, 514 U.S. at 564], and we would have a Constitution in name only.

Surely this is not what the Founding Fathers could have intended. See id. at 592 (quoting Hamilton at the New York Convention that there would be just cause to reject the Constitution if it would allow the federal government to “penetrate the recesses of domestic life, and control, in all respects, the private conduct of individuals”) If some type of already-existing activity or undertaking were not considered to be a prerequisite to the exercise of commerce power, we would go beyond the concern articulated in Lopez for it would be virtually impossible to posit anything that Congress would be without power to regulate.

Vinson's ruling lays out a brief history of the Commerce Clause and its abuse by the Supreme Court; his timeline illustrates the erosion of the Constitution's firewalls by activist judges focused on results, not adjudication.

The Framers meant what they said. And only a morally bankrupt judge could come to the conclusion that our highest law gave carte blanche to an all-powerful central government. Vinson's powerful ruling lays down an intellectual -- and a moral -- framework for pushing back against the Statist Democrats.


Thursday, January 27, 2011

C'mon, Speaker Boehner: Gird Your Loins and Tell the Truth to the American People--Of Course the Damn Retirement Age Needs to Be Raised

Everyone knows it, Speaker Boehner. So don't be a Sputnik -- just say so.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he "made a mistake" when he suggested raising the retirement age to 70 last year... The Speaker indicated he was premature in suggesting raising the legal age at which retirees are eligible for full Social Security benefits, since he didn't want to pre-judge a debate over how to fix the entitlement program. He said he wouldn't rule out raising the retirement age, however.

...His comments walk back remarks from late June, when he said the retirement age would eventually need to be raised by five years, from 65 to 70.

...Democrats, for their part, have seized on those fears and sought to use them to their political advantage. They accused Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who delivered the official Republican response to Obama, of wanting to do away with Social Security...

Hey, schmucks: you've already destroyed Social Security, according to the CBO.

It's already running a deficit and is slated to run dry way ahead of schedule. You created this monstrosity -- and you destroyed it. So be proud, Democrats! Take credit for the havoc you've wrought!

...Fueling the new worry is a report this week from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that suggests Social Security may be more of a drain on scarce resources - or in need of strengthening - than had been thought previously... The CBO said that if interest were excluded, the system would run a deficit of $45 billion this year and a total of $547 billion from 2012 to 2021.

Outlays for Social Security, the CBO said, will hit $727 billion this year, 4.8 percent of the gross domestic product. In 10 years, as baby boomers retire in big numbers and benefits increase, the CBO estimates those expenses will reach $1.3 trillion, 5.3 percent of the GDP.

In other words, the program could be a drain on an already-strained federal system, so the Capitol buzz is this: Something has to be done. But it's difficult: About 53 million people got Social Security benefits last year, and the CBO estimates that will grow to 71 million by 2021.

You read that right. Social Security is headed right into the tarmac -- the way all Democrat social engineering efforts do.

Is that so difficult to fix? Of course not.

Washington indexes all kinds of entitlement payments to inflation. Gee, brainstorm! How about we index retirement to average life expectancy?

C'mon, Speaker Boehner. The American people aren't idiots. They respect politicians who tell the truth. So tell the damn truth and be proud of telling it. Stop playing Beltway politics as usual. The stakes are way too high to dissemble. Leave that up to the Soros-controlled Democrat Party.


Kudos to Senators Cornyn and Hatch: Propose Amendment Tying Spending Cap and Balanced Budget to Lifting Debt Ceiling

I'm warning you right now to prepare yourself for the propaganda. Legacy media will do anything -- anything -- to promote the notion that a failure to meekly raise the debt ceiling would result in utter disaster. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! Hell, based on the track record, some CBS anchor could very well go out and cap some homeless person if that would help sway public opinion.

So I have to extend my congratulations to Senators Orrin Hatch and John Cornyn -- both of whom I've leveled plenty of criticism at in the past -- for their negotiation tactics.

Sens. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) and John Cornyn (R., Texas) are pushing for a balanced-budget amendment as part of any negotiations to raise the federal debt ceiling... Their proposal has gained support within the Republican caucus, but Senate Democrats have not yet signaled they would include it in any package that raises the debt ceiling above the $14.3 trillion level set by Congress last year. The Obama administration has said the U.S. could hit the $14.3 trillion debt level as soon as March 31, and they are pushing Congress to raise the limit soon. As of Friday, federal debt subject to the limit stood at $14.008 trillion.

The Hatch/Cornyn plan would, among other things, mandate total budgetary outlays for any fiscal year not exceed revenues; cap federal spending at 20% of GDP; [and] prohibit revenue raising moves that aren’t approved by two-thirds of the House and Senate. ... The House and Senate would have to sign off on any exemptions, with a two-thirds vote. Provisions could also be waived if there is a formal declaration of war or because of national security concerns.

Call your representatives and tell them you support this measure: No more blank checks.

This. Is. Sparta!


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Hey, Democrats: How Many Years Before All of the Outrageous Bills You Slammed Down Our Throats Become 'Living and Breathing'?

Liberals have a fundamentally different perspective on Constitutional interpretation than conservatives. Conservatives believe that there is only one legitimate way to interpret the Constitution: as it was written. This school of thought is called originalism and no less an intellect than the mighty James Madison said the following regarding this approach.

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government. In effect, the Obama administration.

Eh, okay -- I added that last sentence.

Liberals have invented all sorts of clever schemes for avoiding originalism, even though the Framers studied thousands of years of human history to create a resilient, flexible framework upon which the body politic could grow. They have discovered numerous methods to reject the nation's highest law, upon which they take an oath to uphold when they enter office!

• They reject originalism through the lens of technology: Gee, the framers didn't talk about the Internet, so we've got to create brand new rights from whole cloth!...

• They reject originalism through a fabricated principle called 'Judicial Precedent': Hey, I don't care what unconstitutional decision the Warren Court came up with, it's 'Judicial Precedent'!

• They reject originalism through another fairy tale called 'Judicial Review': Hey, we don't like that legislation, so we'll just dismantle it.

• They reject originalism through social engineering: former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once said, "You guys [i.e., white people] have been practicing discrimination for years. Now it's our [i.e., black people's] turn."

In short, liberals view the Constitution as amorphous and flexible -- "living and breathing", if you will -- in order to advance their agenda.

But I ask you: many laws and contracts are very old (even 99-year leases in Hawaii appear to be commonplace) -- so how many years do we have to wait to call the laws we don't like 'living and breathing'?

Is 50 years enough? 100? 150 years?

Because these laws, contracts and other agreements can't possibly be binding once they hit that limit. They've got to be living and breathing, because the terms could never anticipate all of the changes in technology, transportation and communications... right?

So how many years must we wait before we reject all of the liberals' failed social engineering programs by reinterpreting them under this 'living and breathing' escape hatch?

Not that the country will survive on the spending glide-path we're on right now. But I'm just wondering. Any liberals care to venture an answer?


Saturday, January 22, 2011

Liberalism is Immoral [Mark Levin]

Cub Reporter Biff Spackle transcribed this soliloquy by one of our national treasures, Mark Levin.

My proposition is that liberalism -- or Statism -- is inherently immoral.

It is inherently immoral. Any philosophy that has, at its core, the belief that thievery is a virtue -- is immoral.

If you steal from a bank, that is, you rob a bank but you intend to use that money to feed the homeless -- the act of robbing is still immoral. You've taken somebody else's money. Perhaps taken it from people of modest means to advance a belief that you have.

A liberal may be moral in his or her own life, of course. They may be honorable and ethical in all they do personally, of course.

But then to support a political philosophy that seeks to do that which is immoral when done outside the realm of government -- that is, stealing -- then what is that?

How can that be moral?

To vote to put people in office who campaign on stealing -- who campaign on stealing -- to oversee such an agenda, which promotes a fundamental power-grab, to confiscate somebody else's property and to assign to some other use, is that not an immoral act? Whatever that use may be?

I'm not done: Liberalism is inherently immoral.

When you run up deficits -- and I don't just mean Democrats, liberal Republicans too -- when you run up deficits that are so massive, that you create a crisis and that crisis gets worse and worse and could destabilize our society someday soon... and could destroy the opportunities for our children and our grandchildren one day, is that moral?

No, that's immoral.

If you keep telling people that pay into Social Security that they're paying into a non-existent trust fund, and if you keep voting time and time again to use the money that's supposed to be put aside for Social Security to pay for every-expanding programs and spending for other things... then is not the act of lying -- not just lying once, but lying repeatedly, lying as a matter of philosophy, is that not immoral?

Yes, it's immoral.

Liberalism is inherently immoral. And there's no getting around it.

You can hear this debate around Obamacare. Look at the statistics that have been knowingly used to promote a lie: that adding 30 million more people to health care, massively increasing the federal government's role, massively increasing subsidies, will cut the deficit?

That's a lie. And it's immoral. And it's immoral to keep saying it.

Yet that's what liberals are doing.


Friday, January 14, 2011

May his Kingship be established in your lifetime and in your days

After the T-shirts, the speeches, the vitriol and the crass political gamesmanship, what remains is tragedy.

The death of Dorothy Morris, 76, left her husband, George, a widower after 54 years of marriage. The Tucson man was shot twice as he tried in vain to shield her -- his high school sweetheart -- from the barrage of bullets.

"George heard the pop-pop and tried to throw Dot to the ground and get on top of her, but it was too late," JoAnn Newland, the Morrises' neighbor, told The Arizona Republic. Friends said the Oro Valley couple acted like newlyweds and said George would lovingly refer to his wife as his girlfriend. "It was like they were still on their honeymoon after 50 years of marriage," Bonnie Royle, a neighbor who was friendly with the couple, told the paper.

Others described Dorothy Morris, a mother of two who was born and raised in Reno, Nev., as a kind and shy woman. "Dot was just a sweet, quiet, lovely person," Marilyn Melton, a friend, told the Reno-Gazette Journal. "I think what you'd call her is just nice, a nice lady, a nice human being." George remains hospitalized but is expected to recover from his wounds.

Phyllis Schneck, 79, left behind her three adult children, seven grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. Schneck's daughter B.J. Offutt struggled to comprehend how her mother, a homemaker and widow known for her cooking, could have come to such a violent end. "I can't make sense of it," Offutt told The Wall Street Journal. "There's no logical reason for it."

Offutt said she remembered her mother saying that she agreed with Giffords about "needing to better control the border." But another daughter, Phyllis Rautenberg, said their mother wasn't particularly political. "She was a woman that got married in the early 1950s, and she did all of that June Cleaver stuff," Rautenberg told The Washington Post. "She loved Tucson and had lots of friends there, and spent lots of time at her church."

Gabe Zimmerman was only 30. As Giffords' director of community outreach, he helped to plan the constituent meeting that ended in the deaths of six people. His father, Ross Zimmerman, said his son was caring, smart and hardworking. "I just want people to remember him," he told ABC News. The Giffords staffer had a fiancee, as well, a nurse by the name of Kelly O'Brien who is grieving today instead of planning her wedding. "For the moment, at least, Kelly has lost her future," Ross Zimmerman said of O'Brien.

C.J. Karamargin, another Giffords staffer, said Zimmerman, who grew up in California, was an incredibly hard worker. "Gabe was unfailingly patient with people. He presided over thousands of constituent cases," he told the Los Angeles Times. "He was helping World War II vets get medals, people with Medicare benefits, veterans with benefits issues. These are the types of things day-in and day-out he did, and he was determined to just do the best he could. He worked hard, he really worked hard."

Dorwin Stoddard, 76, died in the arms of his wife, Mavanell, or "Mavy" Stoddard, after trying to protect her from the gunfire. The pair were also high school sweethearts but grew up to marry other people before reuniting in the mid-1990s when they both became widowed. Dorwan was remembered as a caring husband and father and an active member of his church. Mavy was shot three times in the leg as she held her dying husband, but she survived.

Mike Nowak, the Stoddards' minister, said he could find no explanation for Stoddard's death. "You can't," he told The Arizona Daily Star. "We live in a world that is full of crime, full of hatred. You can ask yourself the question 'Why?' but there's never an answer when it hits so close to home."

There is a prayer that has been passed down through the millenia to memorialize our dearly deceased:

May the great Name of God be exalted and sanctified,
throughout the world, which he has created according to his will.

May his Kingship be established in your lifetime and in your days,
and in the lifetime of the entire household of Israel,
swiftly and in the near future;
and say, Amen.

May his great name be blessed, forever and ever.

Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, honored elevated and lauded
be the Name of the holy one, Blessed is he-
above and beyond any blessings and hymns,
Praises and consolations which are uttered in the world;
and say Amen.

May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and life,
upon us and upon all Israel;
and say, Amen.


Thursday, January 13, 2011

Beautiful: 'Moderate', Unindicted Co-conspirator in Terror Funding Trial Instructs Muslims Not to Cooperate with FBI

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is an interesting group. It purports to speak for mainstream Muslim Americans, yet the group and its leaders have been tied repeatedly to radicals and extremists.

Less than two years ago the FBI severed its ties with CAIR "amid mounting concern about the Muslim advocacy group's roots in a Hamas-support network."

CAIR and its chairman emeritus, Omar Ahmad, were named un-indicted co-conspirators in the HLF case. Both Ahmad and CAIR's current national executive director, Nihad Awad, were revealed on government wiretaps as having been active participants in early Hamas-related organizational meetings in the United States. During testimony, FBI agent Lara Burns described CAIR as a front organization.

Hamas is a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, and it's been illegal since 1995 to provide support to it within the United States.

Amidst all of these troubling activities, CAIR maintains that it is simply misunderstood. It claims to be the the country's largest Islamic 'civil liberties group' and works 'to promote a positive image of Islam and Muslims in America.'

Yet on February 9th in Oakland it plans on hosting an event that celebrates tolerance for people of all religions and equal rights for women how to respond to FBI raids.

On September 24th, 2010, the FBI raided the homes and offices of anti-war and international solidarity activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. During the raids, the FBI took computers, cell phones, documents and personal family items. In total, 14 activists in Minnesota, Illinois, and Michigan were subpoenaed to appear before a Grand Jury on that date. Since then, 9 other activists have been subpoenaed, 6 of them Palestinian activists. This type of investigation is a tool to repress our movements for social justice and divide our communities.

The 23 activists have all refused to testify in this Grand Jury investigation.

Join us to get the facts on Grand Juries, know your legal rights with the FBI, understand why this is happening now, and learn how our communities can respond!

HATEM ABUDAYYEH, an activist and Palestinian community leader whose home was raided by the FBI on September 24th. Hatem will speak about the investigation, his experiences, and current political organizing.

It certainly sounds like they're all innocent of any wrongdoing, seeing as how they're refusing to testify.

Abudayyeh -- whose first name seems apropos, all things considered -- is an executive director of the Arab American Action Network and an "advocate for immigrant rights." ABC reported that the FBI raids sought information that would tie Abudayyeh to the radical terror group Hamas.

This would be entirely consistent for those affiliated with CAIR, as has been copiously documented by a multitude of sources.

Everyone with half a brain knows precisely what CAIR is. And this kind of event is just icing on the cake.


Hat tips: Fox News via Memeorandum. Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Extremist Rhetoric: the Political Cartoon That Touched Off The Civil War

Heated rhetoric indeed -- and certain to incite violence.

In this political cartoon, a Union officer (unidentified) swings a club labeled "Union" in defense against a many-headed serpent labeled "Secession"...

The serpent's heads are: Floyd, Pickens, Beauregard, Twiggs, Davis, Stephens, and Toombs, all leaders of the Southern secession movement and the resulting Confederacy. "

-- Civil War Treasures, New York Historical Society [Digital ID nhnycw/aj aj08074]

If only we had implemented the Left's plans -- and restricted political speech -- the entire Civil War could have been averted.


Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Oh. No. He. Didn't. Chris Matthews blames the Tucson shootings on... the strident tone of Mark Levin's voice

Not that you needed more proof that Chris Matthews has lost all command of his faculties, but tonight's diatribe should confirm what we all knew. The Tingle-Master -- which is the term he prefers, I hear -- assailed constitutional attorney and radio host Mark Levin this evening in what must be an all-time record for IQ mismatch. I liken it to a toy poodle attempting to mount Marmaduke.

Chris Matthews, joined by two liberal talk radio hosts on Tuesday's Hardball, essentially blamed...Mark Levin for creating the climate of hate that led to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords as the envious MSNBC host proclaimed: "People like Mark Levin...every time you listen to them are furious, furious at the left with anger that's just builds and builds in their voice and by the time they go to commercial, they're just in some rage, every night, with ugly talk....They must have an audience. I looked at the numbers today. They have big audiences! And I guess that's the question. Why and is it ever going to stop if it keeps working?"

E. Steven Collins, another Philly area talker, sided with Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik who attacked Rush Limbaugh, as he hailed: "The sheriff is Tucson was absolutely right...It does impact people who may have a mental problem or may not" and added that there was a "direct relationship" with Sarah Palin putting crosshairs on her Web site over Giffords' district and the loss of a life of "that little girl who went down to meet the congressperson."

Levin is a man who is passionate about what he believes. Since he was a teenager he has revered the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the rule of law, all of which combine to protect the civil society and the precious country that liberals take for granted.

Levin served for eight years in the Reagan administration including stints in the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior. Today, in addition to his talk show host duties, he provides pro bono legal services as president of Landmark Legal Foundation.

Furthermore, Levin is a man who explicitly decries violence and brooks no such talk on his show.

He is a man who, on a nightly basis, discusses history, philosophy, logic and reason. Listen to one of his shows and there is a good chance you will hear him recite accounts of the first Tea Party of 1773, Paul Revere's ride, or the historic passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Levin often opines on the Framers' intent for the Constitution's Commerce clause, based upon his extensive readings of the Federalist Papers. He has described the founders' reliance upon Montesquieu's separation of powers, John Locke's concepts of natural, God-granted rights, the power of the free market as expressed through Adam Smith's 'invisible hand', and de Tocqueville's immortal Democracy in America.

Therefore Chris Matthews has discarded -- or worse, never bothered to listen to -- the content of Levin's commentary and instead assails the tone of his voice.

Yes, you heard me: MSNBC's Chris Matthews is attacking the tone of Mark Levin's voice.

Which describes, in a sentence, the depths to which the modern Left has descended.

For it is they who market divisive and destructive rhetoric. It is they that advocate lawless behavior. And it is they who reject the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Which is why they grabbed this opportunity by the throat: to suppress the free speech of those with whom they disagree.


Tuesday, January 04, 2011

John Boehner to Harry Reid: Here's a lemon to suck on for a while. Oh -- and you're welcome.

Tea Party conservatives still consider the GOP's "old guard" leadership on probation, but this kind of thing is promising.

Incoming House Speaker John Boehner's office (R-Ohio) pointedly vowed on Tuesday to push ahead with legislation repealing healthcare reform... [responding] to a letter sent by the Senate's top five Democrats, vowing to block a House bill repealing healthcare reform, with a terse, 65-word note...

Senators Reid, Durbin, Schumer, Murray and Stabenow:

Thank you for reminding us – and the American people – of the backroom deal that you struck behind closed doors with ‘Big Pharma,’ resulting in bigger profits for the drug companies, and higher prescription drug costs for 33 million seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D, at a cost to the taxpayers of $42.6 billion.

The House is going to pass legislation to repeal that now. You’re welcome.

- Speaker-Designate John Boehner’s Press Office

The note comes in response to a letter released on Monday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) office, in which the Democrats promise to block a bill repealing benefits within the healthcare law.

I like what I'm seeing thus far. Negotiation? Hell, no.

There must be no negotiation with the Cloward-Piven Statists who took an oath to uphold the Constitution and then promptly dismissed and ridiculed it.

They and their anti-American movement must be demoralized, dismantled and politically crushed.


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Monday, January 03, 2011

I may have missed this part of Schoolhouse Rock, but I didn't think the Senate could tell the House what to do

Senate Democrats are "warning" House Republicans not to try to repeal Obamacare.

The 112th Congress doesn't begin until Wednesday, but Senate Democrats are already vowing to block any attempts by the new GOP-led House to repeal the healthcare reform law.

The Senate's top Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), wrote incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Monday warning the new GOP House against advancing legislation that would undo the sweeping healthcare overhaul.

Despite the scary warnings, it appears the House will move this week to repeal one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation in decades.

CNN has learned that Republicans plan to try to repeal the health care law almost immediately after taking control of the House, setting the stage for an early confrontation with President Obama.

House GOP sources tell CNN that they will unveil repeal legislation Monday night, even before they claim the majority Wednesday. Then, on Friday, Republicans will hold a critical procedural vote – the first step towards passing the repeal. A final House vote will likely take place next Wednesday.

William Jacobson has precisely the right idea.

[That's] certainly no reason not to pass legislation in the House.

There are several vulnerable Democratic Senators up for reelection in 2012. Make them vote on repeal of Obamacare as an entirety, and in pieces...

And then run the advertisements early and often.

This ought to be very, very entertaining.


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Sunday, January 02, 2011

The Tea Party Conservatives Came to Washington to Chew Bubblegum and Kick Ass. And They're All Out of Bubble Gum.

I really like the sound of our guys on the Sunday talk shows.

Let's start with Rep. Allen West (R-FL) on Fox News Sunday.

Q: Then, in November, you said -- and here's the quote -- "that this liberal, progressive, socialist agenda... this left-wing, vile, vicious, despicable machine that’s out there is soundly brought to its knees..." Tyrannical? Socialist? Despicable? Is it really as bad as that?

A: "I think it is... when you look at the nationalization of so much of our production: the automobile industry, the health care industry, the fact that we had an amendment in the health care law that allowed the federal government to take over education, when you look at the fact that we are creating more victims and making more people dependent upon the government... when you look at the incredible debt and deficits that has occurred over the last two fiscal years, we're going in the wrong direction...

...This liberal-progressive agenda is the antithesis of who we are as a Constitutional republic."

I really, really, really like Allen West.

As for some of the other highlights, Darrell Issa probably kerploded a few progressives' heads today by calling the Obama administration corrupt.

Issa ... clarified that when he previously said during a radio interview that Obama "has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times," he was referring to the Obama administration and not the president himself.

"In saying that this is one of the most corrupt administrations, which is what I meant to say there," Issa said, "when you hand out $1 trillion in TARP just before this president came in, most of it unspent, $1 trillion nearly in stimulus that this president asked for, plus this huge expansion in healthcare and government, it has a corrupting effect..."

...He also took aim at the national health care overhaul, which he said is "expanding Medicaid mandates that have been at least tentatively ruled unconstitutional," and at the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which he called "$800-billion worth of walking-around money."

Oh, and Michelle Bachmann laid a rhetorical beatdown on the loathsome White House adviser Austan Goolsbee who had earlier warned Republicans against 'playing chicken' with the national debt ceiling as it could raise questions about America's ability to repay its debts. Uh, schmuck: S&P and other rating agencies have already raised questions, thanks to your insane spending policies.

In an entertaining but ultimately not very informative roundtable, guest host Harry Smith brought Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-Fla.) and Rep.-elect Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) together for a chat that frequently degenerated into the guests talking over each other. Bachmann said the Republicans would introduce a "clean" bill to repeal the new health-care law. Kelly said he hopes that incoming GOP freshmen, many of whom are backed by the tea party, can force the government to live within its means like people in the "real world..."

Both Bachmann and Kelly said they opposed raising the debt ceiling.

Anthony Weiner went on to shriek like a little girl -- or maybe that's his real voice, I wouldn't know -- that failing to raise the debt ceiling would "shut the government down."

Say, Anthony, let's try it for a month and see if anyone notices. We've got a Department of Education that doesn't educate anyone; a Department of Energy that tries to restrict our access to energy; a Department of Labor that helps promote unemployment; etc.

So let's give it a shot for a month or two. I think we'll all be amazed how little we miss the enormous federal bureaucracies that seem to exist only to torment us.


Hat tip: Rowdy Roddy Piper in 'They Live'.